Research and Innovation in Society: Contextualizing a Society Touch in the Academic Block in Tanzania

Tibuhinda Ngonzi ,Andrew Jisaba

doi:10.7176/jep/10-22-11

Abstract

In the triad of academic and specialized research institutions, business, and society blocks, the academic and specialized research institutions domain is naturally expected to be the leader or the principal producers in research and innovation for development (R&I for D). The remaining business and society entities on the other hand are expected to be the target consumers of the products. For production to happen however, the producers need resources, incentives and motivations as factor inputs. The factors may originate in intra-domains for the respective domain’s own use of end results such as it is for business organizations, or across domains for mutual benefits. In turn, the origination of the motives and incentives play a role in defining the relevance of the R&I products such as the emergence of appropriate research for appropriate innovations. It is in the observations of this paper that overtime, R&I in Tanzania is becoming undermined by the decline in the cross dimensional flow, specifically the academic (universities) versus society flow. In fact, apart from the specialized institutions, the academics member of the producer block is increasingly becoming too specialized and servicing its own motives in comparison to addressing societal needs. In this paper, we theoretically challenge the phenomenon and use the functional perspectives of the Triple helix model (THM) of university-industry-government cooperation to suggest for innovative education in enhancement of cross border interactions between university and society. Keywords: Key words: Research & Innovation, Appropriate Research & Innovations, Triple Helix Model. DOI : 10.7176/JEP/10-22-11 Publication date : August 31 st 2019

Highlights

In the general terms, this paper conceptualizes innovation as the generation and adoption of new concepts, the definition upheld in a wide range of literature such as Harryson & Kliknaite (2008, p. 2) “the ability of organizations to adopt new ideas, processes or products”; or Edquist & Hommen (1999, p. 65) who express it as a learning process by which “new knowledge is produced or existing elements of knowledge are combined in new ways”
Figure 1Theoretical evolution of the Triple Helix Model (Adopted from Leydesdorff & Etzkowitz, 1998) We utilize the concepts of cross boundary interaction through contractual agreements of TH I, and the ‘quasigovernmental role as a regional or local innovation organizer’ of TH III to tackle issues of academic distance from societal problems
The paper espoused the gap in failure of universities to focus research for innovation towards societal needs, while attributing it to the differences inherent in the nature of the motives driving innovations in universities, especially where resources for research are meagre such as private universities

Summary

Introduction

This paper conceptualizes innovation as the generation and adoption of new concepts, the definition upheld in a wide range of literature such as Harryson & Kliknaite (2008, p. 2) “the ability of organizations to adopt new ideas, processes or products”; or Edquist & Hommen (1999, p. 65) who express it as a learning process by which “new knowledge is produced or existing elements of knowledge are combined in new ways”. 2) “the ability of organizations to adopt new ideas, processes or products”; or Edquist & Hommen 65) who express it as a learning process by which “new knowledge is produced or existing elements of knowledge are combined in new ways”. Innovations are a prime factor for development and cultural evolution. The emergence of R&I in any dimension: academic, industry or society; the flow of innovations across dimensions for implementation; and the emergence of innovation complementaries (IC) in the host dimensions are essential factors for R&I for development to thrive. Universities are principally perceived as the key institution in the processes of knowledge creation involving research and innovations (Machumu & Kisanga, 2014). We express the concern in a form of problem scenarios as stated here under

The Problem

Conclusions